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"The thing though with you guys, it looks like in a clique, you are comfortable in protecting yourselves and when a new kid in the block comes is with something you don't like (which is quite clearly a commandment in God's word) he gets a hiding. Wait till you face Jesus Christ- and your face will turn pale for rejecting what is clearly a commandment of God. I have showed you in so many ways why it's an immutable commandment of God- and scriptures, left, right and centre- I dont have any hiddent agenda unlike TWI. But if you want to analyse yourself not to do God's sabbath keeping commandment -so be it- all the best-see you at the judgment seat- where I also will be examined It's like people on gsc gang up on me. I am not saying everyone is like this but most except for one other person I know and have stayed with and respect Contrary to what I think I have not be "torn" to pieces ( I laugh)- that's absolutely not true- "torn" is what you think- anyone can talk rubbish without focussing on bible chapter and verse and that's what's happeining. People cannot come back to me and point out what a verse is saying contrary to what I have been pointing out (I am not boasting- but what I have researched and know- I am to explain- If there is something I cannot explain I will gladly take time to research it and explain when it is clear to me) Most people dont do this - they go on about technical analysis- T-Bone would be the best example. If all you guys are interested in technical analysis rather than the word of God then go for it. The nay sayers wait for someone to give a reply then they pounce on an insignificant phrase which they can tear down and just chow down on it instead of focussing intently on scripture verses and learning the honest truth from the word of God." A) Everybody here has been new here at one time, and mis-stepped. I know I have. There are so many different points of view here that if it looks like EVERYBODY is disagreeing with you, you might reconsider if maybe, just maybe, you're so far off that NOBODY can agree with you. When they ALL agree on something, it's pretty rare. I mean, when me and Allen ALONE agree on something and disagree with a poster, that's rare and a big warning sign! :) B) If everybody here who respects the Bible AND believes it disagree with you, and you claim to do both as well- take it seriously. C) I know you THINK you've been logical, and represented the Bible fairly, and that anyone who raised a contrary point was disagreeing with the Bible. You're seeing a completely different version of the thread than everyone else is seeing. I know the easy way to approach it is to blithely claim ALL the other posters are hallucinating, hate God, are possessed, are dishonest, etc. I'd recommend the other approach- maybe, just maybe, everyone else sees something you don't. D) There's a lot you can learn from the posters here. However, you have to be ready to consider that people who disagree with you may have something before you can actually learn from the posters here. "When the student is ready, the teacher appears."

Waxit “It’s like people on gsc gang up on me. I am not saying everyone is like this but most except for one other person I know and have stayed with and respect.” As Wierwille used to say; “If you have the right key you can open the door.” Obviously, you do not possess the right key. GSC was set up with the idea of assisting battered, injured people who had finally escaped the clutches of TWI. Wierwille used the Corp women to commit adultery with him. His successor, Martindale, followed in his footsteps. When I say “they used the Corp women” it is more in the context of these “Men Of God,” demanded sexual submission. After all, these women should serve God’s man, and this certainly included sexually. Go back and read some of the accounts of these abused women…I doubt if some will ever fully recover. Other people were so full of condemnation when they left, or were marked and avoid, for disagreeing with the BOD. It was hammered into their heads they would be a grease spot by midnight if they turned their backs on God’s ministry. Another favorite attack was they will lose all their rewards if they turn their backs on the Man of God. These people, (me included), wondered around, often not sure If they would see the next day. Their anxiety level so high, it took all the strength they could muster, to rise out of bed each morning. If it wasn’t for a job to go to, they might never get out of bed, just hoping for the night to come. I digress because these folks needed an oasis to make sense out of what was constantly swarming around in their heads. Each needed to know they were not the problem! Enter GSC. It was not part of GSC’s mission to say we know Wierwille hurt and used you, but he did rightly divide God’s word, so let’s forgive him, and focus on the Word he so lovingly taught us. No! this remnant of TWI is to expose how corrupt and dishonest Wierwille and the leaders were; not to forgive the rats. Newbies don’t come here looking for the rightly divided word, but for needed support, love, and understanding so they can get on with their lives. If you are looking for the remnant that places importance on rightly dividing the word, you might check out John Lynn, Gerald Wrenn, Vince Finnigan, or the host of others on-line. See if these men want to rightly divide the word with you. Coming here and professing you have the rightly divided word. And then proclaim the doctrine, reproof, and correction all must follow to live a righteous life, is not the way to get the key to open the door, you seem to want to open. Look and see how others communicate in this forum. It is more of a friendly discussion than confrontation. Someone throws out an idea and others express their opinion. There is back and forth, give and take, but nothing like the thread you have started. People are not looking to end their daily discussion with, “thus sayeth the lord.” The key you are looking for, to not getting ganged up on in this forum, is to express your belief’s, and when someone disagrees, accept that their opinion is different than yours. STOP! Good luck! Stayed Too Long

Well, I've been thinking about that... and how easily people get conned (in general) these days. So I found an intriguing essay about classic literature that contrasts with VP quite well. https://medium.com/@spencerbaum/3-reasons-why-you-should-read-more-classic-literature-in-2019-e762cb5c910c Call me Ishmael. The famous opening sentence of Moby Dick, so short and provocative, is welcoming and familiar to the 21st century reader, who is accustomed to snappy prose with short sentences and lots of white space. A few sentences later in Melville’s masterpiece we get a sentence that’s more representative of the novel to come. In just a bit I’m going to quote that sentence, and insist that you read it. And I mean really read it. Don’t skim it. This essay is about to make the argument that there is value to the way the classics force us to slow down and concentrate, and it will be easier for you to understand that point if you experience it first. Here’s the quote from Moby Dick. Please read it slowly and carefully: "Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off — then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can." This brings us to the first and, to my mind, most important reason to read the classics in 2019 2020. 1. You should read classic literature because it forces you to think deeply and concentrate. 21st century media is hell on the attention span. But you already know this. You know that our digital devices are shortening our attention spans, teaching us to only skim the surface of ideas, and making us addicts to tiny dopamine bursts that come from (among other things) the Like and Share buttons. As we near the end of the second decade of the 21st century we’ve developed widespread awareness that our devices have made us shallow thinkers. We’re less cognizant, however, of the effect of the content itself. Or the style in which the content is written. Have you ever wondered why so many of the articles you read, like this one, are organized in numbered lists? Or why the writing in these articles is so often organized into ultra-short paragraphs, many of them only one sentence long? We, the content creators of the 21st century, have learned to write in snappy lists with short sentences and one-sentence paragraphs. We write this way because this is what you, the content consumers of the 21st century, choose to read. You like content that is clear, concise, simple, and to the point. You’re in a hurry (always), and we writers know, God do we know, that we are competing not just against other essays or other books, but against the endless siren songs of Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter. We know that if we ask too much of you, say, if we give you a long sentence or, God forbid, a long paragraph, we might be taxing your mind more than you’re interested in having it taxed. We know that a complicated, multi-layered thought, one that might require you to slow down or reread a sentence or look up from your screen and think for a minute is too much to ask when your phone is bursting with notifications and there’s a new video on your favorite Youtube channel and everyone’s talking about that new show on Netflix but you haven’t even seen the last new show everyone was talking about yet and you’ve got ten tabs open on your browser and 3,000 unread books on your Kindle and holy hell who has time to consume it all just open my vein and fill it with listicles please! There’s a cost to all this. In the book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist for general nonfiction), Nicolas Carr looks at all the research in neuroscience and psychology about what the Internet is doing to our brains and determines that, yes, our ceaseless attempts to skim this glut of information is making us shallow thinkers who are far less capable of deep, focused, intense thought than our parents and grandparents were. You should read the classics in 2019 to unlearn the shallowness and impatience you are learning in your hyper-accelerated 21st century life. When you read Melville (or Hugo or Austen or Tolstoy or Plato or Shakespeare) you are sharing headspace with someone who is much better at slow, deep, meaningful thinking than you are because they’ve never lived in the shallows like you do. ***** The essay continues, but I hope you get the point. Wierwille obviously didn't want you to THINK.

Luke 16:10-11 10 He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. 11 If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? ======================== Looks like Waxit is on to you, JESUS CHRIST. You sure fooled me. Your insistence that people won't trust you with real importance if you flub stuff with the unrighteous mammon, that sounded sensible to me. However, Waxit's certain it's not proper. I recall how sincere he is about the Bible and how dedicated he is. So, if he says one thing and you say the other, than Jesus Christ must be wrong and Waxit must be right.

I'd agree with you (actually, I do agree with you for the most part) except that I am able to block ads online for the most part. I abhor them. Because of the essay I quoted, I'm going to embark on a whaling ship soon (well, in the novel Moby Dick, which I didn't read in HS). I missed out on a lot of literature in HS. That's my biggest regret for those years of schooling. I did obtain Melville's book for free to read on my Kindle app. I also didn't learn Latin in HS or college. I did take four years of French. However, having graduated... 48 years ago, and never having traveled to France or any other French-speaking land, the best I can do with it now is to watch movies wherein the dialogue is in French and try to recognize words and match them with the English subtitles. I won't rule out someday travelling to Paris. And perhaps Italy. During my military service, I did make it to Germany twice. For that experience, I'm thankful. I do spend more time reading, either books or current affairs/news. It was in Air Force technical training that I learned to type. As a telecommunications system tech, I spent more than three years communicating by dedicated teletype (we called them "order wire"). It became imprinted in my brain. Probably that's why I am comfortable posting online in social media and GSC, and writing a blog. Thanks, WW for your insight.

I'm unplugged from a lot of the information overload items you mentioned there, partly for exactly that reason. They take up all your time, and do it on their terms. Technology can be a tool, but for many people it's a crutch. I've been a fan of William Shakespeare for quite some time. I've been a fan of reading a good book for quite some time. One thing I find interesting about books older than around WWII is that they're written for a FAR more selective audience. Many writers would have been shocked to think of interested laymen reading their books. I once saw someone criticize a book (now in public domain due to age) where the writer quoted Latin and didn't translate it. The critic claimed he did it to be pretentious. No, I've read a few books that were contemporary to it, and they do the same thing. It was expected your reading audience was familiar with Latin and didn't need a translation;. The idea of universal literacy appeals greatly to me, and offers the chance for everyone to educate themselves. Now, with e-books available for free for many classics/public domain books, reading them can be done for free. That having been said, the offer won't be taken up by a large swath of the population. That's a shame. For that matter, many of them are cheap to own in print form because they're public domain.

I remember one day, in FellowLaborers, looking in the mirror and suddenly wondering "How did I become this person I'm looking at in the mirror?" It wasn't one of those moments where you somberly ponder the situation. It was jolting and instantaneous, like an unexpected slap in the face. It was depressing and horrifying at the same time. I chalked it up to unrenewed mind and silently chanted some since forgotten retemory verse.